I don’t know how to put this politely so I’m not even going to try. ... THey actually want to be americans and not some stupid a$$ hyphenated american. ......This hyper desire to assimilate also happened with irish and german immigrants. My grandmother who was part irish shunned her irish ancestry and actually denied it. She was darned near ashamed of it. She was a WASP and any talk otherwise was fightin words to her. That sounds strange today, but it is true. So, being a WASP, or at least pretending you are, makes you more "American"?
If your name was O'Flaherty and you fought and bled for the Union in the Irish Brigade, you had to be ashamed of your Irish heritage in other to be considered a "real American" like those Anglo-Saxon Protestants that had English ancestry and English surnames?
Should the memorial to the dead of the Irish Brigade that died for the Union at Gettysburg, dedicated on July 2, 1888, have been less "Irish" so that they would not be considered "some stupid a$$ hyphenated americans"?
Should Joe DiMaggio have changed his name to "Joe Harrington" and denied he was Italian in order to be considered more "American"?
Maybe your grandmother's shame at her Irish ancestry had to do with how Irish were viewed at the time by the WASPs in America.
The Irish were routinely caricatured in nationwide publications such as Harper's Weekly as ignorant, violent drunks with ape-like faces.
And don't even bring up how the WASPs saw how the Catholics were polluting the American Republic.
Maybe your great-great-grandfather was one of those gallant Union soldiers that proudly gave his life for America at Gettysburg under both Old Glory and the green battle flag of the Irish Brigade that honored their Irish heritage.
Maybe, yelling the Irish Brigade's battle cry of "faugh a ballagh" ("clear the way"), he distinguished himself at the Wheatfield at Gettysburg with the rest of the Irish Brigade in that battle that saved the United States of America making him as much of a "real American" as you can possibly be.
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But, who knows? Since he was not a WASP celebrating his English ancestry, your grandmother thought he was therefore not a "real American" and denied he ever existed.
By denying him, she then "assimilated". Maybe she changed her name from "O'Flaherty" to a more "American" name like "Jones" or "Wilson".
And, in doing so, she lost her real American heritage.
Denying the heritage of your ancestors does not make you more "American". It only makes you unworthy of your ancestors.
Ha! Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I’m not prejudice against the irish. I’m just stating a fact that WAS reality. There was a time when people “aspired” to assimilate to be americans. I didn’t mean to pick on the irish. I just don’t have any italian ancestry, otherwise my personal anecdote would have included the italians. By the way, my granny wasn’t pretending to be a WASP. She was a WASP, mostly...25% irish...from her daddy’s side.
But you bring up another topic that I feel strongly about. That is this nonsense more and more americans have about “being proud of one’s ancestry”. It is kinda stupid when you get down to it. We are americans. We are a heinz 57 mixture. Promoting pride in one’s ancestry is promoting balkanization and that is dangerous.
There’s nothing wrong with being aware of where you came from, but pride in what culture your great great grandparents were part of is just dumb. They are dead and gone and that culture that they were part of doesn’t exist any more I can take pride in being a midwesterner. I can take pride in being conservative, or the specific skill set I’ve aquired. But how can you take pride in who your long dead ancestors are who you never even met?
I happen to know that my genetic composition is primarily danish, dutch and german...with some english, irish, and native american. I feel absolutely no connection to any of those cultures or nations. I don’t fly a flag from any of those places like the mexicans and the italians seem to like to do. It’s stupid. It’s not an exclusive club, it’s just history.
In this country, you don't inherit your station in life. You work for it. That's the american way.